"Rose Covered Glasses" is a serious essay, satire and photo-poetry commentary from a group of US Military Veterans in Minnesota.
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Wednesday, October 01, 2014

US MILITARY INCURSIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST CAUSE AND EFFECT RELATIONSHIPS

Image: Sabina Becker

An
observer of our military actions over the last two decades in the Middle East
could in no way have predicted the splintered, irrational, “Turn-Your-Back-And-You-Have-Two-New-Enemies”, scenario the US faces today.Perhaps a
look back over our shoulder, examining cause and effect relationships along the
road is in order.

CAUSE:The US fights a just and honorable war
assisting many Middle East allies and other countries free Kuwait.

EFFECT:Saddam Hussein is driven from Kuwait and the
country is returned to its rightful government.

CAUSE:The US does not leave the Middle Eastafter rescuing
Kuwait, but rather, stays in peripheral countries militarily “To Protect Our
Interests” with an imperialist attitude resented by cultures that have an
ingrained,religious hatred for that type of presence by foreigners.

EFFECT:The rise of Bin Laden and many more like him
today and the deaths of 3,000 Americans on our soil, attacked in our homeland
because we did not leave the Middle East.

CAUSE:The US reacts to 911 by setting up an
elaborate Homeland Security apparatus and beefing up the National Security
Agency by orders of magnitude, technologically, while putting in place a
carefully concealed legal apparatus to counter terrorism.

EFFECT:
The US has no outside terrorist incidents of a 911 magnitude since the Twin
Towers fell in 2001but Americans develop real concerns about our
government and its role in controlling our lives as whistle blower
disclosures regarding the apparatus of intelligence operation reveal potential constitutional issues.

CAUSE:The US invades Iraq fed by false,
intentionally staged intelligence, fronted by agencies and industries bent on
economic gain. The US sets about war fighting and nation building programs that
seek to displace a culture that had evolved through conflict and war lords for
hundreds of years and is tied to the absolute requirement that religious
practices be part and parcel of government, a principle the US has rejected as
unworkable since our Constitution was written

EFFECT:Failure to build anything substantial in the
form of a nation over an 11 year period.The deaths or crippling of our finest soldiers, dramatic increases in
our national debt and a cynicism among our citizens with respect to the
$Billions that have gone into the pockets of corporations supporting our huge
Military Industrial Complex (MIC) and wasteful USAID Programs by companies that
spend more lobbying Congress than they pay in taxes.

CAUSE:The present Middle East unrest due to
ISIS/ISIL and other splinter groups we thought had been scattered to the
winds.

EFFECT:UN security council meets with many nations
talking and less than a half dozen nations carefully and selectively
participating in an air war against terrorism while the remainder watch the
outcome. Our military and corporate
defense establishment (MIC) shout, “Sequestration to reduce military spending
must end!” and estimates two years will be required with more American boots on
the ground to train an Iraq force that we had already trained for a decade
before the Iraq government disbanded it.

CAUSE
(PROJECTED):A political battle like
none seen in recent times during the coming US national elections, driven by concerned American
citizens and their view of the US role in the Middle East, our burgeoning
national debt approaching $18Trillion and the fact that the culture in that
part of the world has had a very difficult time figuring out how we can help
them over the last two decades while we near energy independence from oil and
require some nation building of our own in the homeland.

EFFECT
(PROJECTED): A leader and a political climate that will permit prudence, tough
decisions, carefully avoidance of bad intelligence and overreaction so that we
do not continue to sink into the oil and blood soaked desert of Middle East
cultural revolutions as global corporations consuming the MIC and USAID tax payer dollars prosper, parking their assets overseas while
our young become indebted for generations.

4 comments:

I think you were too harsh about the justifications for the Iraq War.The idea that we were lied to is kind of naive, it was faulty evidence but not flat out lies. The Bush administration took potentially faulty information and pushed it, pushing weak ties of Iraq to terrorism. But they were not made up out of thin air, or lies.

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About Me

2 Tours in US Army Vietnam.
Retired from 36 Years in the Defense Industrial Complex after working on 25 major weapons systems, many of which are in use today in the Middle East.
Volunteer MicroMentor. I specialize in Small, Veteran-owned, Minority-Owned and Woman-Owned Businesses beginning work for the Federal Government.
MicroMentor is a non-profit organization offering free assistance to small business in business planning, operations, marketing and other aspects of starting and successfully operating a small enterprise.
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The Colors of Hastings

EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE

My gratitude to the person or persons who sent to me a new Sony Cybershot DSC-H90 Camera.There was no return address or acknowledgment of the kindness, other than a one sentence, typewritten note that read:

"For all that you do for others"

I am very grateful and will put the marvelous precision instrument to good use - Ken